With a biretta tip o{]:¬) I refer you to an article by John Wright about the new stupidity deepening flick Angels and Demons.
If you thought The DaVinci Code stupid, just wait! There’s more!
Golly. I thought ANGELS AND DEMONS by Dan Brown would turn out to be just an ordinary run-of-the-mill Catholic-bashing hate-fest. But, no, the whoppers told strain credulity. Do people actually know that little about history? It seems that they do.
Here is what I picked up here and here.
Brown claims: Copernicus was murdered by the Catholic Church. [No… really… he does… stop laughing…]
Fact: Copernicus died quietly in bed at age 70 from a stroke, and his research was supported by Church officials; he even dedicated his masterwork to the Pope.Brown claims: “Antimatter is the ultimate energy source. It releases energy with 100% efficiency.”
Fact: CERN, the lab which plays an important role in his story, actually debunked this claim on their website: “The inefficiency of antimatter production is enormous: you get only a tenth of a billion of the invested energy back.” [Oh yah? Tell that to Scotty!]Brown claims: Churchill was a “staunch Catholic.”
Fact: Any history buff could tell you that Churchill wasn’t Catholic, he was Anglican; nor was he particularly religious. The only things Churchill was staunch about were cigars, whiskey, and defending the British Empire.Brown claims: Pope Urban VII banished Bernini’s famous statue The Ecstasy of St. Teresa [ROFL!] “to some obscure chapel [?!?] across town” because it was too racy for the Vatican.
Fact: The statue was actually commissioned by Cardinal Cornaro specifically for the Cornaro Chapel (Brown’s “obscure chapel”). Moreover, the sculpture was completed in 1652 — eight years after Urban’s death.Brown claims: Bernini and famed scientist Galileo were members of the Illuminati. [You have to love anything with the Illuminati!]
Fact: The Illuminati was founded in Bavaria in 1776. Bernini died in 1680, while Galileo died in 1642 — more than a century before the Illuminati were first formed. [oooops]The idea that Copernicus was murdered by the Church is just too stupid for words. I mean, I have a pretty low threshold when it comes to Illuminati fiction. I love that ‘secret-history‘ stuff.
I am not a hard sell. If you want to put in your book that Atlantis was a superhightech civilization destroyed by the extra-dimensional Eddorians in order to thwart Arisian attempts to breed mankind to create the Kwisatz Haderach, child of the Lens and the father of the race that will rule the Sevagram, I will suspend my disbelief like it was bouyant with helium.
You want to establish that a race of robots hidden in a secret base in Mount Ararat has been guiding human history since the time of Enoch, I am your man.
You want to say the Freemasons (who built the temple of Solomon) are the archenemies of the Slavemasons (who build the Great Pyramid of Cheops) have been fighting a duel to place or remove feng-shui-significant stonehenge, monuments, and Cathedrals at goethermal accupuncture points across Europe, Asia and the New World since the Bronze Age, and that all major wars and architectural firms are under their control, and involved in a secret aeons-old Cold War to prevent the telluric current from destroying this world as unwise abuses of the geomancy of the canals of Mars did that remote, dying world? Sure!
Shiwan Khan is actually a time-travelling alien from planet Mongo, granted eternal youth by the powers of alchemy, and he long ago replaced the royal family of England with Life-Model-Decoys which he controls with the ten magic rings he found in the wreckage of a spaceship from planet Maklu IV? Why not?
Lord Byron was a vampire? You would have to pay me money not to believe that. [I hope they never find out about the secret order of Vatican Vampire Assassins I have been researching… ]
Queen Elizabeth ran of coven of witches whose stormcrafty drowned the Aramda of Philip of Spain, after he had secretly adopted the practice of mass human sacrifice from his wife who was secretly an Aztec princess in order to gain magical control of an entire hemisphere’s worth of demon-cursed Mexican gold? Not only possible, but likely!
The entire Middle Ages is an elaborate fraud perpetrated by the Roman Empire, which never fell but simply went into hiding once Virgil the Magician discovered the tunnels leading to Pellucidar in the Hollow Earth? Seems reasonable to me!!
The US Congress killed and replaced by shape-changing seals from the Dreamlands who talk like movie pirates? Brother, I wrote it!
But the Catholic Church MURDERED Copernicus? Oh, my aching back. He was a churchman himself: why not simply order him to recant his findings?
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Brown is the same fool who claims that
1) Christ, was married
2) that Mary magdalene (the prostetute, even though scripture makes no mention of her being the woman who was about to be stoned), was married to Jesus, and he backs this up with Gnostic writings wroe 200 years after the first gospel…
3)That Opus Dei is some evil org that has priests and monks who plot things (when in reality, priest and monastic efforts are minimal compared to the lay effort.
Its one thing to get the biased w.a.s.p version of history in school, this guy brown makes that look truthful!
Regarding “Brown claims: Churchill was a “staunch Catholic.””
Perhaps mr Brown is confused, there was infact a churchhill who was a Bishop that converted to Catholicism, but I digress.
Brown is dangerous for one reason, he sensationalizes things so much, that ill informed people (60 percent of the population) go right along with it. Then you get the masses who probably rarely read yelling at you for being an oppressive, mean , chauvanistic catholic who is happy with a flat earth and sitting in the dark
Fr. Z, the link doesn’t work. Thanks for the laugh…very funny post.
I had a Bible professor who said: “If Dan Brown ends up in Hell, it wont be because he is a heretic, it will be because of the perverse crime he perpetrated against the English language.”
I’ve been in Rome for the past three days. Most of the city buses are advertising this movie. I’ve been staying at the Domus Romana Sacerdotalis, and “Angeles and Demons” seems a popular topic. However, the serious concern here is about the Pope’s upcoming trip to the Holy Land. There is a cloud of apprehension in the air. The Pope will need all the help he can get on this one, including some angelic protection. Pray for the Pope’s safty.
John C. Wright is one of the best bloggers out there (great SF novelist also). Since his conversion from atheism to first Protestantism and then the Catholic Church a year ago he has turned out some great posts addressing his audience which is largely agnostics/skeptics/atheists. His use of reason and humor to defend the faith is quite striking.
But Father!
My Bene Gesserit mother always taught me to regard Paul Muad’Dib Atreides as the Kwisatz Haderach!
Thanks for the laugh!
I love absurd conspiracy theory and I’d buy a copy of The Secret Order of Vatican Vampire Assassins. What? That’s what you’re working on when you’re not posting new material here, isn’t it?
Isn’t it?
Plenty of fodder here for WDTPRSers. Not exactly what I would call an inspired perspective.
http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/features/f0000353.shtml
I saw an expose on this via EWTN (Some man from The Catholic League presented this on “The World Over”).
Anything from Ron Howard or any one else on the Hollywood Left is to be eschewed IMHO.
Pax.
Brown is a swindler and an impostor who makes money with ignorant people’s credulousness.
The bigger are the lies and yarns he spinned, the easier those poor and weak minds like and are eager to swallow them.
Isn’t it possible to silent this man in a trial at least when he slanders the Church and distorts it’s history?
Let’s hope Mr Brown et alii never find out about the top secret Rubrician Order…they sport some pretty strange clothes and perform really arcane rituals :-) [You had to remind them about the Rubricians… okay… expect a visit from the V.V.A.]
What it proves,
Is that our education system is failing. Deeply. I was struck, on reading the dVC at how Brown assumes his readers are completely stupid. Then, a few moments later, I realised that, yes, most of his readers *are* really stupid. Sigh.
Can we shut up about this stuff in the hopes of NOT giving him more publicity?
“The US Congress killed and replaced by shape-changing seals from the Dreamlands who talk like movie pirates?”
Well DUH, explains ALBORE, don’t it ;>)
When I read A&D, by the time I reached about page 10, the bogus physics Brown presented already clued me to fact that the book was total B.S. I’m another of those folks who suspends disbelief readily enough, but really! By the time I got to the serious Catholic-bashing, my outbursts were enough to get my wife to check to make sure I was ok.
Unfortunately, people will go see the movie and they will buy it, lock, stock, barrel, reallllly bad physics, fake history, total lies, and all.
I want to see The Curt Jester’s movie about Ron Howard’s family.
Fr. Z, if you could link me to those Vampire Assassins you were talking about, that\’d be a huge help. I\’m planning on featuring them in my next novel. ;) [NO WAY!] Need to know how they go out and battle politicians–I mean, demons.
Here’s another whopper:
It is Pope Urban the EIGHTH, not the SEVENTH, who died in 1644.
Please don’t tell me Brown said it was Urban VII…..
Whatever.
I’m ashamed to admit that I read this garbage novel when the davinci code
came out because i got it for free.
reads like an airport novel–one you buy when boarding a plane and trash it
as soon as you land. unfortunately, for many people, this is classic literature and will of course skew their perception of all things Catholic.
The premises, the theme, and the ending were all so preposterous, I found it hard to believe anybody would take the book seriously. And then I see a movie being made, and I am now convinced the collapse of western civilization is indeed upon us.
A classic in this film genre is “The Name of the Rose” starring Sean Connery & Christian Slater. A must see!
Bah!!!
You are all wrong. All of this has been perpetrated by we, the Celtic People, in order to have our own back on the Romans, Saxons, and whomsoever has oppressed us in the past!!!! Yes, it is us those naked blue smeared warriors that you all feared. The Children of Boudicca!!!!
Of course now we have all become good Catholics and regret the trouble that we have caused. If our ancestors had only known of the Sassenachs Brown and Howard we would have been more careful.
Man oh Man, have we goofed. Even History is not safe with these cretins.
Should one *really* be surprised by the popularity of Dan Brown novels/films when we also have broadly repeated claims that: Dick Cheney orchestrated the 9/11 attacks; Barack Obama murdered his grandmother to hide the fact of his Kenyan birth; FEMA trains are carting the elderly off the a secret cavern outside Denver to harvest their organs; and swine flue is a Mexican bioterror strike against the US?
We are living through an increasingly gnostic age in which the desire for “secret knowledge” which will impart elite status is deeply craved. As Chesterton so wisely observed, “When people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing — they believe in anything.”
Brown claims: Fr. Z is a cylon. [Yah… well… everyone has their lot in life…]
Fact: silence
The Truth is out there.
::ducks and covers::
Fr. Z said:
“[I hope they never find out about the secret order of Vatican Vampire Assassins I have been researching… ]”
Actually, that sounds a lot like the movie John Carpenter’s Vampires or the anime series Trinity Blood. Though to be fair, Trinity Blood apparently takes place in the far future or on another planet or something.
I hate to be picayune, but Mr Churchill was also staunch about Champagne, having personally kept Pol Roger afloat during the 40s.
As far as the secret order of Vatican Vampire Assassins, I’ve run into a few of them in Rome. They seem to get the best tables in the good restaurants.
Fr Z – you are too modest in your imaginings – I had heard you yourself are the last living descendant of the Minnesota Vikings who met St Brendan (actually Copernicus, whose death had been cunningly faked to ensure an early end to the 100 years War), when he landed, with a plate of lutefisk risotto, [oh… gulp… oh… I really didn’t need that image…. oh…. GAK….] and gave him your copy of the Vinlandia Map, so that he could paddle his way round the NorthWest passage and meet the Angel Moroni to embark on a mission to Area 51, in order to get a better view of the approach of Nibiru, from an alien weather balloon. Oh – and you’re really a Cathar.
therese b – Please tell me that your findings have been made into a movie!
I have a sister that believes that anything she sees on the big screen is absolute truth. Hoo-boy, is she ever going to be tough to be around after seeing Angels and Demons.
“therese b – Please tell me that your findings have been made into a movie!”
Oh – you betcha! Your sister will love it. It’s in post-production at the moment. In fact I’m writing the sequel. I don’t want to give too much away, but it involves a thrilling chase, with Tom Hanks stealing a John Deere from the Minnesota State Fair, and being pursued up the steps of the State Capitol building, under which is the secret lair of the Cathars (the descendants of John the Baptist by Salome, of course) where they are creating an anti-matter copy of Leonardo Da Vinci in order to unpaint The Last Supper, and thus keep the exact location of their treasure at Rennes-le-Chateau a secret forever. In deference to Fr, Z, however, I will rewrite the dining scenes to include only edible minnesotan fare – such as hamburger hotdish. No lutefisk will be harmed in the making of this movie.
It’s set for shooting once Ron’s hair transplant has settled in (You wouldn’t believe how difficult it is to find a ginger chinese convict).
Dan Brown can say stupid things, and it doesn’t matter because what matters is that he attacks the Catholic Church. That’s what sells these novels. Nothing more needs to be said.
Oh, and The Name of the Rose, however interesting a book, is a ridiculous movie that presents such a grotesque distortion of monastic life and its contributions to civilization that it makes one think Eco must be an ignorant nitwit. Which he is not.
Christopher Hoag,
But he is, he is the Kwisatz Haderach!
The spice is life,
therese b, please tell me that food on a stick is part of the arcane ritual in some way!
While I’ve never a) cooked or b) eaten Lutefisk, I have a secret recipe for cooking it to perfection. At least that’s what they tell me.
3)That Opus Dei is some evil org that has priests and monks who plot things (when in reality, priest and monastic efforts are minimal compared to the lay effort.
No, actually, the really funny part is that Opus Dei has no monastic component whatsoever. None. No monks. No habits. Nuthin.
Sorry, Silas!!! :)
Actually, though, we do have a Silas in the Work, but he is a happily married man with a couple of kids, from Nigeria (not an albino!) and lives in New York…
“Oh, and The Name of the Rose, however interesting a book, is a ridiculous movie that presents such a grotesque distortion of monastic life and its contributions to civilization that it makes one think Eco must be an ignorant nitwit. Which he is not.”
I also didn’t like the anti-Dominican angle. Bernardo Gui was really not THAT bad an inquisitor.
Ironic that the film had some most illustrious consultants—none other than Jacques LeGoff and Michel Pastoureau, two of the finest medievalists of the later 20th century.
To be honest, the depiction of the physical setting of the monastery (built entirely as a set) was quite good. Though I was annoyed by the director’s decision to cast particularly ugly and malformed actors to play the monastery denizens (except for the dirty but voluptuous peasant tart with whom Christian Slater’s Franciscan novice has a sexual encounter)—it looked like a circus freak show.
Mongo only pawn in game of life.
The victors write the history. The secular left has won in the English-speaking world and, in fact, in Europe in general, and they can do whatever they want with history and reality.
Fact: CERN, the lab which plays an important role in his story, actually debunked this claim on their website: “The inefficiency of antimatter production is enormous: you get only a tenth of a billion of the invested energy back.”
PLEASE don’t tell the government. They’ll go into it BIG TIME!
[I hope they never find out about the secret order of Vatican Vampire Assassins I have been researching… ]
Hmmmm.Maybe they could pay a visit to Mr. Brown
reads like an airport novel—one you buy when boarding a plane and trash it
as soon as you land
Funny you should say that. I read it on a two hour plane ride (on my way to Rome, actually). The utter drivel! Appealing to Dan Brown fiction was the only way to get my cousin to go with me, though.
they can do whatever they want with history and reality
“But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not die.'”
I listened to the DaVinci code in mp3 format before I really knew what it was about because it seemed to be the ideal thing to listen to while painting a large room. If you just followed along without thinking about the plot too intensely (which was rife with holes) it wasn’t too bad. This new book seems to much worse than that.
This has got to be my all time favorite sentance ever!
<>
Kudos Father Z I love it! All in one sentence!
Actually, Copernicus’s final resting place was recently located in a church in Poland, and the identity of the remains confirmed by independent DNA testing (with the help of hair samples found in some of his personal books). Modern computerized forensic methods were used to reconstruct his facial features, which show a remarkable resemblance to some of his portraits. See link below:
http://wyborcza.pl/1,75476,5967964,Potwierdzone__oto_szczatki_Mikolaja_Kopernika.html
With the body located, perhaps Mr. Brown will now wish to start criminal proceedings against the Roman Catholic Church.
It is a bit upsetting that a number of people commenting here have purchased the garbage that Mr. Brown and Mr. Howard produce. Then you talk about how stupid others are for buying into this stuff. How intelligent is it for faithful Catholics to financially support theological “hate speech”? (sorry, I feel compelled to use liberal talk once in awhile) It would be like me going to see a pornographic film because all my friends and a well known reviewer said it had impeccable acting. Please, don’t give me the lame argument that you can’t talk about something you haven’t seen or tried. There has been enough commentary to know this is to be avoided. Sure, you can say that you obtained the book for for free or saw the movie on someone else’s dime. I say BS! The Brown and Howard families thank you from the bottom of thier hearts and you can be sure there will be more to come thanks to your generosity.
“[I hope they never find out about the secret order of Vatican Vampire Assassins I have been researching… ]”
It’s been done. No, really, it has: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120877/
And did someone mention lutefisk risotto? O! My! God!!!!!! Euuuuuuuuuuuu!
As Hanks said in another film: Stupid is as stupid does
The only things Churchill was staunch about were cigars, whiskey, and defending the British Empire.
When asked if he considered himself a pillar of the Church of England, Churchill replied that he saw himself as more of a “flying buttress.”
‘Fr.Z’ implies Urban VII died in 1646. What a comedian – Urban VII died 27 September, 1590.
“It is a bit upsetting that a number of people commenting here have purchased the garbage that Mr. Brown and Mr. Howard produce”
Well I didn’t purchase it, Vianney33, and nor have I commented yet, but I DID read it. How? I was staying with friends in France about 5 years ago and it was lying around. I read it on their patio – with the aid of a bottle of the local hooch (Blanquette de Limoux). It took about 3 hours to read, on and off. I even managed to keep the (excellent) wine down. Complete twaddle. Prose so overboiled it makes Ludlum look like a haiku master. In terms of plotline and characterisation Denis Wheatley is Joyce in comparison. And my friends, 2 highly intelligent retired people, didn’t buy it either. They found it, they said, (and I believe them, as they wouldn’t buy stuff like that for litter for their cat) in… Rennes le Chateau! (thunderous scary organ chord). R-le-C isn’t far from where they live and they went for the laugh, it’s full of “arcana” shops and such like, for the simple minded.
So there are three people at least who have read it while not having bought it. I hope it did end up as cat litter – fitting.
I also read it but didn’t buy it. Someone I know received it as a gift, then lent it to me. I liked the first several pages because it referenced some of my old Parisian haunts, e.g., St Germain des pres. Soon thereafter, however, I grew more and more bored as I turned the pages. The characters were dull, and they were involved in activities that didn’t matter.
I don’t think the book was all that dangerous. Are there historical distortions and worse? Of course, there are, but they provide the circumstances for answering questions.
I think the banalization of the liturgy is far more dangerous. Taking a small example, the come on, everyone, let’s sing along responsorial psalm is far more destructive than a schlock novel.
I admit I read The Da Vinci Code (but I bought it second hand so that Mr Brown didn’t get any royalties from me), and I just howled with laughter.
I was an undergraduate English student at the time and I could not believe that it was found to be print-worthy, let alone material for a movie! Whoever the editor was, he/she should have been ashamed of themselves.
I didn’t actually have a problem with the story, it’s sold as fiction after all.
My biggest problem was the fact that in the front of the book Dan Brown states that all events and organisations are based on fact.
Well, we all know that isn’t true.
As soon as a work of ‘fiction’ begins to sell itself as credible, that’s when people start to believe all the tripe.
I won’t be bothering with Angels and Demons, but I do relish the ads with the big booming voice advertising it as ‘the movie the church didn’t want you to see’!
Urgh, just shove it up your jumper for goodness sake!!!
It’s hard to interpret it as anything but “anti-Catholicism.” It plays on the ignorance of those who know little about the Church or who want to think badly of it. It is the same with anti-Semites who pretend that Jews are behind everything bad in the world. Sadly, it took the Holocaust (which killed many non-Jews too) to render anti-Semitism politically incorrect. I fear what it would take to render anti-Catholicism equally reprehensible.
Winston Churchill was a staunch Catholic?
Hah. Tell that to the Irish.
Iluminati in Bavaria??!!! Hmmm….scary!!
I’ve been boycotting Mr. Brown. Waste of time.
And I agree, we should pray for the safety of our Holy Father.
First off…I can’t believe Fr. Z didn’t remind all his readers that Angels & Demons is a work of fiction. Second…I can’t believe that there are 52 people who commented about this, in such an upheaval that the Notre Dame scandal would seem to be some passing news item.
I am always amused at how “itchy” people get to want to just assault everyone and everything that could have some possible effect on their sensibilities. Pro Tip: If you are going to be personally offended by everything…you might want to re-examine why.
I am reminded by the words of the homily given to the Bishop Emeritus of Antigonish, Bp. Colin Campbell, who is in residence at a local parish up here, when he said, last Sunday, when he remarked about things like the DaVinci Code and other “superfluous” things……”BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH….stop crying about things that have no intrinsic value except to get you riled up and do something more productive…like….*gasp*….praying”.
Nothing else need be said….thank you your Excellency
If anyone is still interested, here is a clip from the producer of \”Angels and Demons\”, Ron Howard. He makes some points, and he low keys his bias. Embedded video from CNN Video. Compare this with a lower keyed piece from the Boston Globe which quotes Cardinal O\’Malley. The responses beneath his comments are where the polemic begins. (Clink on link.) http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles_of_faith/2009/04/omalley_revisit.html
My previous link to Ron Howard’s CNN Video interview regarding “Angels and Demons” doesn’t work. The evidence is clear. The interpretation, ambiguous. It’s either “angelic” intervention or “demonic” interference.
[I hope they never find out about the secret order of Vatican Vampire Assassins I have been researching… ]
Clearly, Fr. Z and Stephenie Meyer could collaborate on a project about the Twilight Vampires and their Super Important Role in history. Between the screaming teenage girls and those of Dan Brown’s ilk, such a book would outsell Harry Potter.
Considering how bad “Da Vinci Code” the movie was (didn’t it get boos from the Cannes film festival?), I am surprised Howard dared to make another movie.
-KJS
I can see why the movie version of DaVinci didn’t stand up because it forced the audience to confront the enormous plot holes. For the person who got all excited about how we readers were putting money into the pockets of Brown, et. al. I guess I didn’t really see the danger of this book that some people did. The premise was pretty unbelievable and only extremely gullible people who are already into extreme conspiracy theories would believe any part of the story. If not this John=Mary Magdalene, was the wife of Jesus thing, then it would be something else, like the vampire assassins. For me, that major storyline just required suspension of belief along one major axis. The rest was just a not too terribly bad murder mystery, a romance and a thriller set in picturesque Paris. This new book sounds like it has so many obvious and glaring factual errors that they will prove too distracting, no matter how good the mystery, romance and thriller elements or the setting. I didn’t find the DaVinci code offense, like say, the Golden Compass, which I netflixed. It was so gratuitiously anti-religious and anti-catholic that I gave up on it in disgust.
My biggest problem was the fact that in the front of the book Dan Brown states that all events and organisations are based on fact.
Well, we all know that isn’t true.
Comment by Alice
Of course, “based on fact” is a fairly ambiguous phrase. It can mean as little as a certain person, place, or organization actually existed, but the rest is fiction. Brown refers to monks of Opus Dei. Well, Opus Dei obviously exists, but it doesn’t have monks.
IMHO, Brown doesn’t know the difference between what is real and what exists only in his imagination–that’s why he’s a novelist.
Two items today–http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090504/ap_on_en_mo/eu_italy_angels___demons
Ron Howard criticizes the Church (ooohh) and http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/film-news/5262555/Catholics-attack-Dan-Brown-film-Angels-and-Demons.html
Tom Hanks stated that the film thrives on confrontation. I do not think it would sell without confrontation.
For the record, I did not like The Name of the Rose in the movie version, as I thought it did not show monastic or Church culture correctly. The book is much better.
By the way, what if Mr. Hanks, Opie and company did such movies on Islamic history, events, people?
For the record, I did not like The Name of the Rose in the movie version, as I thought it did not show monastic or Church culture correctly. The book is much better.
Comment by Supertradmom
The book was written by a real medieval scholar and is excellent–a couple of steps above most pop novels.
The movie is another matter and fails to capture the spirit of the book. It’s as if Annaud and the screenwriter thought they were making a vampire movie.
“The entire Middle Ages is an elaborate fraud perpetrated by the Roman Empire, which never fell but simply went into hiding once Virgil the Magician discovered the tunnels leading to Pellucidar in the Hollow Earth?”
I want to read that novel!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Here’s a good approach to this upcoming movie about the Vatican.
“‘Angels and Demons’ fails to generate Vatican outrage”, by John Thavis of Catholic News Service,
(Click on link below):
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0902031.htm